"And a little crazy. We love Howard, but sometimes he does the darndest things. He'll walk around our house opening and closing all the doors, even closet doors. He looks to see if anyone's hiding inside, to eavesdrop on his business talk."
Barbara and the other women pilots in the living room couldn't hear enough about the famous man. "Is he still producing movies?" she asked.
"He keeps talking about making a big, sexy western, about Billy the Kid, called The Outlaw. But first he needs to find a leading lady. She can't be a blonde, so the part's not right for Jean Harlow. The actress he wants has to be full-figured, which Rita Hayworth isn't quite. And she has to still be in her teens."
Barbara laughed. "That's a pretty tall order for any actress."
Jackie agreed. "He told me once, 'There are two good reasons why men will go to see the actress I finally cast.'
He says he's seen a photo of a girl whose breasts are really developing. Jane something. But she's only fourteen. He hopes he can wait about four years for her to grow up, and get even bustier."
Laughing, the ladies adjourned to the dining room. During char-broiled steaks, baked potato, and tossed salad, Howard Hughes and Floyd Odlum joined them. Hughes slouched in a chair next to Barbara and began flirting, as she expected. She even hoped he would, knowing nothing could come of it.
"I hear you're a 'self-made woman'," Hughes said, not touching his meal but drinking the cabernet. "I like that, because I'm a self-made man. Of course, I've made a few women, myself."
Stick to flying, Barbara thought, smiling. You're not much of a comedian. During dinner, Barbara realized she and her hostess had something else in common. Both loved to eat.
Before the party was over, the others toasted her. Barbara wished they didn't make such a fuss over her. In her brief speech afterward, she said he had just flown a few loop-de-loops, and made sure they knew she had not put on her air show alone.
"I hope you'll also toast Leila Jackson," she said, and they did.
Barbara felt she had enough excitement for one day, being accepted as a fellow pilot by some of America's best women fliers. But the highlight of her visit to the Cochran ranch came after dinner. She was invited to become a member of the organization that singled them all out and bound them together, the Women Flyers of America.